"Yes, papa," I answered. "But I must go back to Mary, if you
please, after I have been with you."

Angry as he was, my father was positively staggered by my
audacity.

"You young idiot, your insolence exceeds belief!" he burst out.
"I tell you this: you will never darken these doors again! You
have been taught to disobey me here. You have had things put into
your head, here, which no boy of your age ought to know--I'll say
more, which no decent people would have let you know."

"I beg your pardon, sir," Dermody interposed, very respectfully
and very firmly at the same time. "There are many things which a
master in a hot temper is privileged to say to the man who serves
him. But you have gone beyond your privilege. You have shamed me,
sir, in the presence of my mother, in the hearing of my child--"

My father checked him there.

"You may spare the rest of it," he said. "We are master and
servant no longer. When my son came hanging about your cottage,
and playing at sweethearts with your girl there, your duty was to
close the door on him. You have failed in your duty. I trust you
no longer. Take a month's notice, Dermody. You leave my service."

The bailiff steadily met my father on his ground. He was no
longer the easy, sweet-tempered, modest man who was the man of my
remembrance.